


Grand R

by Mad_Max



Series: Les 400 Coups [4]
Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Bad taxidermy, M/M, sad sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-05
Updated: 2013-09-20
Packaged: 2017-12-25 17:28:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/955791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mad_Max/pseuds/Mad_Max
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Grantaire and Uncle Fulbert do lunch, Grantaire is called Narcissus rather gratuitously, and it comes to light that he has been rejected by the Salon. Part I of III.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Grantaire's name is not really Narcissus.  
> Fulbert is not really an expert on the strikes of '89.  
> This is not a brunch, it is a plot device.

“Your eyes are red,” pronounced his uncle quite suddenly over the rim of his champagne glass. They had been pondering the ticking of the mantel clock in utter silence, the remnants of their brunch spread out between them, for the past twenty minutes. Without waiting for the response that they both knew would never come, he continued cheerfully, “You have either caught something, have been smoking hashish, or were crying.”

Grantaire choked into his own glass and came up spluttering.

“If you’ve been smoking hashish before noon, without so much as thinking of inviting me, I shall be offended,” said Fulbert.

A beat. Diverting his gaze to the sheen of grease on his plate where had been egg and sausage (another of his uncle's quirks, this insistence that they stuff themselves with what he called “a proper, full English breakfast - the only way for a man to breakfast, Narcissus”), Grantaire coughed.

“Impolite,” said Fulbert.

“Sorry.”

“You are not.” He sounded absolutely delighted. “Come, then, what’s all this about? You haven’t been trying to plant daisies in flower-girl’s wreath again?”

“Floréal refuses to see me.”

Nodding sagely, Fulbert poured them each another round of drinks. “Offended her, have you? I told you, Narcissus, my boy; with a face like yours, you must be either charming or witty.”

His eyes darted about the rather generous expanse of nose and brow on Grantaire’s face. Said face had always been a point of contention between them. As a boy, Grantaire had been rosy-cheeked and lively, and Fulbert had pronounced him a cherub, sure to be a stunner in his youth. Puberty, an excess of wine and beer, and three years shared misery with his master, Gros, had worked a hollow of world-weariness into the once-round cheeks, dulled his eyes; he finished: “You are neither.”

They drank.

“But,” continued Fulbert diplomatically, rekindling his cigar on the flame of the oil lamp on the little “decorative table! every man should have five!” at his side, “I suppose you have your art.”  

His art. Grantaire swallowed hard against the sudden thickness of his tongue. Fulbert, taking no notice, ploughed on loudly: 

"The problem with art is that, in creating it, one fancies oneself an artist." 

This was a common enough subject, a safe one - one of his uncle's favourites when the visits were colored by what he perceived to be his nephew's "woefully creative nature" - that he found his interest begin to wane almost on instinct, his heartbeat restored to something almost lethargic. He leant back in his chair, his gaze drifting again to the smear of grease on his empty plate.

The cigar dangling delicately from from his right hand, Fulbert took a sip of champagne and gestured for Grantaire to do the same.

"Artists." He held the the word on his tongue as one might a mouthful of mushy apple. "You, my frightful old thing, are not an artist. You are much too clever for that. Just because your favourite pastime includes the daubing of wretched little pictures does not mean you have to develop _nerves_. Sensitivity! What is sensitivity, Narcissus, if not vanity? A reflecting pool. Once you catch sight of your feelings, boy, you lose your freedom. You are stuck. Absolutely tragic. Come, a drink!"

They drank.

"This painting you submitted to the Salon; you never told me what became of it. Did you paint with feeling?"

"I think so."

Fulbert nodded. "Yes, then. And the subject? Something dreadfully sentimental, I am certain. Death, mourning, melancholy, _Sturm and Drang_ \- all that nonsense. _Die Leiden des jungen Künstler._ What was it, then? Give us all the delicious little details. Drink your champagne - _splendid_! Another bottle, I think. Mathilde!"

There was a lapse as their glasses were filled from a fresh bottle and Grantaire, in trying to avoid the pitying eye of the serving girl, found himself locked in a staring contest of sorts with his own reflection in the mirror on the far wall.

"Narcissus," prompted Fulbert impatiently.

He sighed. "People. I made a subject of an evening out."

"Dancing?"

"In a café."

"Fascinating," said Fulbert, who found it everything but.

"It was rejected," said Grantaire bluntly.

"Wonderful!"

Silence.

They drank.

At length, Fulbert, taking a tremendous puff of his cigar, eyed his nephew with almost tenderness (he no longer smiled, at least), and said carefully, "The rejection was recent."

Grantaire, feeling as though his stomach were being forcibly dragged from his gut and out through his left foot, nodded quickly.

"Today?"

"This morning."

"You are heartbroken," said Fulbert.

"Disappointed," corrected Grantaire.

Heartbreak was for love affairs, for women, for starry-eyed adolescents. His melancholy had a decidedly deeper, infinitely sharper edge. He eyed the mirror on the far wall, his lips twisted in a miserable grimace, and wondered dully if it would crack should he attempt to put his head through it.

The mantel clock ticked. Because they had nothing left to eat, they sipped champagne and refilled their glasses in silence, the bottle passing between them like a shuttlecock until, with a final, valiant spurt, it spilled the last of its contents into Grantaire’s fluted glass and was placed at the corner of the table for Mathilde to collect.

Silence was a common enough theme at these monthly bruncheons of theirs that it seemed to disturb them - if at all - very little. Rosy-cheeked and humming to himself, Fulbert perused a catalogue that appeared to Grantaire, from upside, to be outright pornographic in nature. Every so often his uncle would stiffen, shake his head at something on the page, and reach for his glass. Grantaire stared listlessly at the mirror.

It would crack, he decided. And he might bleed on his uncle’s freshly-beaten Persian carpets.

He was not sure if the idea terrified or attracted him.

“It has been twenty minutes,” broke in Fulbert suddenly from over an illustration of a man riding a massive, free-standing phallus. “You still look like a slapped arse. Do you want money?”

Money was always a welcome companion. Grantaire shrugged.

Sliding him a handful of gold coins with gusto, Fulbert folded the catalogue. “You cannot possibly still be upset about your painting.”

Grantaire shrugged again.

“You are. Ridiculous! Why, this rejection is the greatest thing you have ever accomplished, Narcissus. I am proud to call you one of my own. This is the finest act of rebellion I’ve seen since the strikes of ‘89. Fancy yourself a _patriot_ and the Salon _Le Réveillon_.” Having never actually seen more than a short newspaper clipping about the strikes of ‘89, Fulbert considered himself an expert in the detached, clinical manner of a scientist. Grantaire sank further into his chair, champagne glass glued to his lips, as his uncle continued:

“Splendid! In a fit of absolute contrariness, you have managed, with your work, to offend an entire Jury of stiff-necked old fools. How the dust must have risen from their beards! We are assuming they have beards. Now, off with that miserable head of yours - a toast! Yes, delightful - I’ll purchase your masterpiece! I shan’t take ‘no’ for an answer! Mathilde shall accompany you to the _atêlier_ and decide in my stead if the price you name is appropriate - you shall try to undersell, and I won’t have it. Come, a drink, and then to business!”

  
What followed was a blur to Grantaire: at one moment, he was fairly certain of his perch atop a comfortable, if painfully Baroque chair at the breakfast table, until he was not. Fulbert, grinning through a set of champagne-slicked teeth, shoved an envelope into his pocket as they reached the door, shoved his nephew into a cab and the serving girl, Mathilde, in after his nephew, paid the cabbie generously, slammed his fist against the cab door in farewell and ascended to the house once more.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grantaire is miserable, and things come to a head between Fulbert and Gros.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologise for this utter drivel.

Grantaire began to regret the decision to come as soon as his feet touched the paving stones. With only Gros’ hand at his back to encourage him the rest of the way out of the cab, and the knowledge that he would be paid well for his discomfort, he shuffled up the front steps and lifted the knocker to rap softly on the door. Fulbert had apparently decided to share his newfound enthusiasm for art with twenty or thirty of his closest friends; the windows shook beneath the volume of their raucous laughter and the clatter of their footsteps across the floors.

 

On the third knock, the door was wrenched open from the interior; it took him several moments to recognise the hairy, wet, cold thing smashed against his cheek not for a dog, but for his uncle’s wine-slicked mouth and generous (though fashionable) moustache.

 

“Narcissus, my nephew, my darling, come in!” A dusty, half-empty bottle of brandy bearing the label ‘NAPOLÉON’ dangling from his left hand, Fulbert ushered them in with the right one and slammed the door shut, nearly catching Gros’ coat-tails in the process. He swayed slightly where he stood, his grin wide and yellow, his eyes glazed. “You have arrived! I would offer to take your coats, but I pay someone for that. Mathilde! Come inside, come inside; Mathilde, fetch this poor fellow a drink. He’s as pale as a consumptive!”

 

There was a flurry of movement as their coats were removed and carted off on the arm of a tight-lipped Mathilde, and Fulbert, draining the bottle to a fourth, insisted on shaking the hand of an increasingly confused and alarmed-looking Gros.

 

“We’ve met once before,” he said loudly, half-handshaking, half-dragging them down the hall and into a festive little room that was barely to be seen behind the colourful costumes of his guests.

 

“Ah, yes,” responded Gros uncertainly with a sideways glance at Grantaire, who shrugged.

 

“I signed the contract, paid all the fees for his little arrangement with you. ‘20 or something, it was. ‘19? Who knows! Hardly matters! Come, a drink! Yes, delightful! Splendid of you to come!”

 

They were plied with champagne and brandy, poured out by a beaming Fulbert, who hiccoughed as he brushed hands with Gros in passing over the glass and announced, “You look like that painting of Buonaparte, doesn’t he? What was it, Narcissus?”

 

“ _Napoleon at the Pont d’Arcole_ ,” replied Grantaire blankly.

 

“Quite right. Dastardly old fool, but a chin that could cut the tension in this room into eighths. Delightful!”

 

“I painted it,” said Gros.

 

Fulbert nodded distractedly, waving the brandy between them. “Very good. More wine?”

 

A glance at his uncle, who seemed to be attempting his best impression of a sailor at sea while grabbing at the sleeves of passing partygoers, was almost enough to give Grantaire hope for an uneventful evening. As though sensing this and desirous of restoring the status quo, Fulbert handed him a fresh bottle with a powerful clap on the shoulder and boomed, “Drink up, Narcissus, lad. I don’t want a trace of sobriety in this room before the grand unveiling!

 

Years of playing Fulbert’s hired companion and prop were experience enough for Grantaire to realise it would be useless to insist they forgo the ‘grand unveiling’; he poured himself another glass and drained it in resignation.

 

“My nephew also fancies himself an artist,” said Fulbert loudly. He cast a fond glance over his shoulder at Grantaire, who stuffed a mince pie into his mouth in response and chased it with another gulp of brandy.

 

Gros frowned, his eyes flitting between Grantaire, half-way through another pie, and Fulbert. “I assumed that was the purpose of his, ah, studies… in art?”

 

“It is,” said Grantaire around the rim of his glass.  

 

Fulbert snorted. “I don’t pay for you to fancy yourself an artist, Narcissus.”

 

“Narcissus?”

 

“His given name. By me. As my heir. A most suitable sobriquet - _nomen est omen_ ; if you hadn’t noticed, he is prone to terrible fits of theatrics and self-involvement, flights of absolute, unchecked fancy, which is a perfect segue back to my original point - ”

 

“Oh, don’t let’s get back into that. Your original point was exhausted from every angle by the end of breakfast this morning,” cut in Grantaire impatiently. His original regret at having agreed to expose himself and his teacher so gratuitously to Uncle Fulbert had returned in Titanic volume. “And then again over tea. If you attempt to get any more use out of it, you’ll exhaust the fabric, and you’ve never been much of a philosopher; holes wouldn’t suit you.”

 

As soon as the words left his mouth, he regret them. Taking a delicate sip of brandy, Fulbert set his glass on the sideboard, nodded at a woman who had been making eyes at him from across the room, and said with forced cheer that called to Grantaire’s mind muddled memories of watching a gypsy woman walk across hot coals as a child:

 

“I do not supply you with four hundred francs a month in allowance for you to loaf about, feeling sorry for yourself, weeping over your canvases each time one is returned to you with a mark of rejection stamped onto the back.”

 

He punctuated this first statement of fact with a gulp of brandy, mimicked by Grantaire and Gros, who had drawn closer to one another as the weight of Fulbert’s glassy, blue gaze fell upon them.

 

“I fund your education,” continued Fulbert placidly, “the development of your wit, not the sensitivities of which you seem convinced that you possess. You are my heir, Narcissus, and as such you will straighten your back, stiffen your ears - as the Germans say - cease at once this leering and moping before you frighten away my guests, and drink your brandy like a good boy.”

 

Grantaire, familiar enough with defeat to recognise it almost on instinct, drank.

 

“Splendid,” said Fulbert.

 

There was an awkward pause as Gros attempted to distance himself from nephew and uncle by turning to observe the crowd at the piano, the rim of his glass pressed against his lips, though he did not drink. Fulbert, sensing perhaps that he had gone too far in company, snagged at the waist of a passing dandy, his eyebrows raised suggestively, gaze fixed on every single thing in the room that was not black-haired, frowning and beginning to flush at his side.

 

Once he was certain that his voice would not betray him, that his lips could be trusted with the small, satisfied grin that twisted them into a smear of dark red beneath his nose, Grantaire snatched up a bottle of brandy, an armful of pies and a decorative mini bouquet of paper lilies, and made for the door.

 

“Don’t stray too far,” called Fulbert from the Louis XV Corbeille sofa (“Every article of furniture in this house has a name and must be referred to as such, Narcissus.”) in the corner. He draped his arm across the backboard, fingers grazing the curly head of a needlepoint cherub, returning Grantaire’s inane grin with a broad one of his own and a puff of his newly-lit cigar. “The grand unveiling!”

 

“ _Vivat maecenatum caritas_ ,” hummed Grantaire, and slipped out.

 

The corridor was abandoned, save for Mathilde, who raised her eyebrows as she passed with an armful of porcelain - objects to be hidden away in the cellar until the danger posed to Fulbert’s meticulously cared-for knickknacks had abated. He could hardly blame her for taking precaution; the party had commenced an hour earlier, and already a cracked champagne glass adorned the fluted top of an oil lamp, and someone had attempted to bind a corset around the abdomen of an ivory faun in the parlour.

 

“Grantaire?”

 

The study door at his back burst open suddenly to reveal a thin-lipped Gros. Grantaire took off in the opposite direction as quickly as his feet would carry him, which was not as quickly as he would have liked, but did the job.

 

Snapping the library door shut behind him, he spread his feast across a side table and made a beeline for the desk on the far wall. Fulbert’s ‘study time’ tobacco stash was kept in a hollowed-out copy of the King James Bible on a corner of the desk - safe from the disapproving eyes of Mathilde, who made a habit of ‘accidentally’ disposing of her employer’s smoking materials whenever she managed to sniff them out of their increasingly creative hiding spots.

 

Fulbert’s pipe would be hidden in another room, far enough to be of little interest to him; his fingers spidered over the spines of the other books stacked haphazardly beside the Bible, choosing one at random from which to tear a page.

 

To the deuce with Fulbert and his grand unveiling. He decided immediately upon the completion of his first _papelate_ to smoke through the entirety of the tobacco, drink until he lost consciousness, and possibly, some time in between, find someone willing to sleep with him.

 

Taking up the bottle of brandy, a pie and the paper bouquet, Grantaire settled himself behind a curtain on the cushioned window ledge. The window was already open, swaying slightly in the breeze. He loosened one of the paper lilies from the bouquet and watched disinterestedly as it disappeared into the black expanse of garden below. 

 

He could always follow it.

 

But then, a leap from the first story was as likely to break his leg and increase his misery as it was to alleviate it.

 

He took a puff of his _papelate_ , decided he disliked the taste of tobacco, and flicked it through the window.

 

At this moment, the door to the study burst open again.

 

“ - haven’t slightest idea where’s gone off to,”  boomed a voice he recognised almost immediately as Fulbert’s.

 

This hypothesis proved itself as the lurid floral pattern of his uncle’s waistcoat crossed into view, blocking the majority of a second figure, who spoke next: “He looked unwell.”

 

Grantaire could feel, rather than see through the crack in the curtain, his uncle’s shrug. “Unwell?” said Fulbert derisively. “Narcissus is never well. You must understand, my dear Baron, my nephew is overly sensitive. It’s quite fashionable, I’m told. Which is not to say the boy has an inkling of fashion, at all, but he has always been so. It is entirely his father’s fault. The _bourgeois_ disease, this belief that merit walks hand in hand with _success_ and _skill_. Having never had to work for my money, I can neither understand nor appreciate it. But, his father wanted him to attend the polytechnic, which made him miserable, as you can imagine. I offered to sponsor his every pursuit that did not include mathematics; his father pronounced him a chronic failure and predicted he would amount to nothing. I took that nothing and made something of it. Do you follow?”

 

Fulbert stepped to aside to reveal a rumpled and glassy-eyed Gros.

 

“He is a terrible student,” offered Gros fondly.

 

“Splendid,” said Fulbert. “I expect nothing better. At best, my nephew would do away with this play at sensitivity and live up to his potential for deviancy. I love a good deviant. It amuses me terribly.”

 

A pause. Fulbert laid his hand on Gros’s shoulder, and Grantaire had to bite down on his hand to conceal his sharp intake of breath.

 

“Unfortunately, he seems set on living out each misery to the fullest. I’ve come to terms with it. It is his way, this sulking about and feeling sorry for himself - running off, drinking. We’ll probably find him passed out in a rosebush in the morning with his hand down his trousers. So, you see, M. le Baron, I really shouldn’t worry; my nephew may fancy himself a Young Werther in temperament, but I doubt he had enough patience to read through to the end of the book.”

 

Gros’ eyes followed the splay of Fulbert’s fingers on his shoulder. Swaying uncertainly, he said, “I did not mean to say that he lacks talent.”

 

“But, he is lazy,” finished Fulbert softly, sidling closer.

 

“Yes,” agreed Gros.

 

“What is talent in the hands of someone who doesn’t know how to use it?”

 

Grantaire felt suddenly queasy watching them.

 

His hands free of the glass he had been sipping from, Fulbert leant heavily into Gros, pinning him against the edge of the writing desk and purred, “You know my nephew _intimately_.”

 

“I have been his teacher for three and a half years,” said Gros with a moan as Fulbert’s hands made their way to the drop fly of his trousers. “I’m afraid I haven’t been a very good one.”

 

“I haven’t been a very good uncle,” admitted Fulbert, then laughed. “I would ask you to teach me something, but I despise learning. Anyway, I can think of worthier pursuits.” He lowered himself onto his knees, his fingers plucking until the fly dropped open.

 

Grantaire emptied the brandy and glanced down again, longingly, at the garden.

  
“I should - ” began Gros half-heartedly in protest. His words compressed into a gasp as Fulbert took the tip of his cock into his mouth and began to suck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Nomen est omen_ is a kind of jokey Latin phrase that refers to nominative determinism. 
> 
> _Vivat maecenatum caritas_ is a cobbled together verse from the uni song _Gaudeamus igitur_ , and means "Long live the charity of benefactors". 
> 
> _papelate_ was the original Spanish name for a cigarette before the French name was coined around 1830. 
> 
> Young Werther commits suicide at the end. Fulbert is bluntly saying that he's not worried, because he doubts Grantaire has the patience/mental faculties to even consider suicide, let alone do anything to himself, so let him mope all he wants.


End file.
